“Can’t get any worse after that.” She smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “I guess it’s time for you to block everyone.”
“I did that in the car after I pulled in,” I admitted. “I can’t have him in my life anymore. Between the three of them, they’ve made hurting me an art.”
“How’s Brawny doing?” Cody asked.
“Good,” I admitted. “The guy that had him the last six months taught him a lot of manners. He’s so much better now than he was. If I try hard enough, I can almost pretend that he was away at puppy boarding school that helps gain puppies some manners.”
“Your sister is something else.”
“My sister?” I laughed. “What about your sister? She’s more related to you than she is to me.”
“I hate her,” she grumbled. “I can’t stand the way she treats Dad. I wish he’d follow suit and block her from his life.”
“He won’t.” I smiled sadly. “Your dad is too good of a person to ever cut her out of his life. He’ll keep trying until there’s no breath left in his body.”
“Maybe she’ll go to jail or something once your lawsuit comes to light, and we won’t ever have to deal with her again.”
“Her mother and my father would just pay the fines for her,” I pointed out. “She’ll never have a threat of jail time.”
“Are you okay with taking their money?”
We’d talked about this before, and at first I’d been adamant that I wouldn’t take their money.
But the more they proved that they were forever and always on Birdee’s side over mine, I crumbled. At this point, I would take their money. Any money that they didn’t have meant they’d have less to spend on Birdee. And they weren’t going to be able to live off my mother’s trust fund forever.
“Do you think that you could petition the court for your mother’s trust fund?”
I scrubbed at my face. “Honestly, I don’t want to go through that hassle. I have enough money in my own trust fund from my mother that I’ll never have to deal with money ever again. I don’t want to go fight for my mom’s money when that’ll just mean having to deal with them more. I’d rather just stay in my own lane, and hopefully never see them again.”
“You’ll continue seeing them, because you live in the same small town as them,” she pointed out, bursting my bubble. “And Birdee won’t quit just because she lost a court battle. She makes a living out of making us miserable. To think that she’ll stop just because you sued her and won is naïve.”
She had a point.
But still…
“We’ll figure it out if the time ever comes that I want to pursue that avenue.”
My mom had left me a bunch of stuff, including the house that my dad, stepmother, and stepsister were occupying.
If I wanted to be petty, I could. But the fight sometimes felt overwhelming, and honestly, useless.
Why give myself a headache when I didn’t need to?
“Does it not piss you off to pay the taxes on that place?”
It did.
A lot.
But usually I just sent the bill to my father, and he paid for it after I pointed out he was the one living rent-free in the house, after all.
“And you think that he’s going to pay it now after what happened today?”
I grimaced.
That bill was due now…
Nine
